Wondrous Strange

by Kevin Bazzana (Oxford; $35)

Opinion on the eccentric Canadian pianist Glenn Gould is polarized between idolatry and detestation. Bazzana’s portrait—the most balanced yet—ingeniously provides contexts for Gould’s behavior, situating his hermeticism in the dour Anglo world of mid-century Toronto. A keen deflater of myths, Bazzana shows that Gould, often assumed to be asexual or gay, had a number of quasi-girlfriends, though his need for solitude always came first. Similarly, although it’s true that he sued Steinway, alleging injury from an employee’s effusive greeting, among friends handshakes were common. Still, those for whom the eccentricities are half the fun will find endless delight in the meticulous accounts of Gould’s diet, hypochondria, and near-suicidal driving. “It’s true that I’ve driven through a number of red lights on occasion,” he once said, “but on the other hand, I’ve stopped at a lot of green ones but never gotten credit for it.”♦